Alleging ‘conspiracy’, Advani wants PM to prove majority (Lead)

New Delhi, July 10 (IANS) Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani Thursday accused the government of trying to foist the India-US nuclear deal on the country and asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to immediately seek a trust vote to prove his majority in parliament. Addressing a news conference here, Advani accused the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of adopting a “deceitful attitude” over the nuclear deal and said it had lost “all credibility” by presenting the text of the safeguards pact to the IAEA while denying it within India.

“We have a feeling that a conspiracy is afoot to present the nation with a fait accompli by rushing it through behind closed doors,” Advani said, after a meeting of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

“This is something no government should do, least of all a minority government.”

“This government has made our country a laughing stock by denying knowledge to the people of India, by denying knowledge about this (safeguards) document to the parliament of India, and allowing that document to be put on the website and made available to every country of the world… what they described as a classified document.

“Therefore, when the NDA met this afternoon, we felt outraged.”

Advani went on: “The NDA demands that the PM seeks a vote of confidence in parliament immediately. The nation has lost faith in the opportunistic and untrustworthy UPA regime.

“A minority government cannot be allowed to barter away the nation’s interests through the back door.”

He accused the Congress of embracing “an opportunistic and unprincipled alliance” with the Samajwadi Party “to stay in office for a few more months following the withdrawal of Left support.

“Using this as a fig leaf, it (government) is pretending that it still enjoys majority in the Lok Sabha.”

Advani said his colleagues in BJP who had been studying the Hyde Act, the 123 Agreement and now the safeguards agreement “say all their misgivings of the government, the government’s approach to (nuclear deal), have come true, and the assurances given by the PM in both houses of parliament to searching questions, they have not been honoured”.

“What has been done surreptitiously now need to be condemned… This government has lost all its credibility, its words cannot be believed any more.”